The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-05-21

gins to blow, long before we feel it down
below, the tree-tops know it, and are whisp-
ering about it one to another, like old witch
es brewing a storm"
"And there's nothing but a patch of
garden therein your fathers old place." l
went on, without needing; land here are
these long rich grass lands. And how in
the world are we to manage a farm two
miles away from it, should like to knowm
81 know" said Mark, easily "Just as you
do two rods away
ITS impossible" said l. "You don't
understand any thing about the oversight
and care that great farm needs if you
think that.n
"Well, we could sell the farm, you know"
''Sell the farm!' | cried, starting up.
''My fathers, my grandfather's, my great
grandfather's-''
''Your Noah's, your Adams"
Chow do you dare talk SO to me, Mark
Myers about my home!' l cried, more
vexed and more.
Il shouldn't think you had called my
home prison and dungeon" he retorted.
''Well, it is! the glOomiest, the"
''Now hush, my darling; hush, you little
viXen," said Mark, laughing with his hand
on my lips, ''or you'll say something you'll
be sorry for"
you've said something you'll be sorry
| for" | cried-"calling me vixen. / may
be vixen, but if you were a gentleman
But the Myerses always were tyrants, and
! I'm glad I've found you out in time-so
calm, and so cool, and so fixed in your own
way. And I'll never never, go and live in
| your old prison-house," | cried, growing
angrier and angrier, Heaven only knows
why. "And you may just whistle for your
dog, and go there yourself, and go alone. l
| never want TO see your face again" And
| before he could grasp me and prevent me,
| had flashed into the house, and had shut
and bolted the door.
He waited then; he waited, should think,
an hour. And l sat inside burning with
| anger, and with an unconscious sense of
shame, very likely, and bitter disappont-
ment, and wild, unnamed fear. And at
last he rose slowly and looked at the Win
dows, and turned away and called old
Roland, and went slowly down the lane.
And he never came back. l could see him
walking along, ever so slowly, in the clear
moonlight with the dogs nose in his hand,
till the road turned into the wood that
mounted the hill. And when he had gone
| just threw myself on the floor, and all but
dissolved in my mad tears. And l didn't
| hhO" Wlau VIZ ItLIo HGlC lOI-NIlCIIltl
| for fear Of losing Mark or for fear of losing
my home, or for fear of giving up my will;
| but it seemed to me that the end of the
world had as good as come.
| We were both orphans, we both had these
great properties, and we had both better
have been beggars.
That was June, and the full-moon.
didn't sleep any that night hardly know
why a presentiment of evil kept me waking,
| although | was so tired. | remember that
moon now, hanging in the purple sky, with
| her wide wings, like a great boding ghost.
Every time l looked out, there she was.
| By-and-bye she began to brighten me, and
shut her out, but lay awake all the same,
my mind in a wild whirl.
The next evening, in the long after-glow
of the sunset, l tripped down the lane to
the wood, sure that should meet him, as |
| always had done, on his way to me; but the
| shape had been used to see bounding down
| the path did not see again. l went close
| to the shadow of the wood, but only old
Roland came and put his nose in my hand,
and waited with me while waited, and
went back with me a little way when
went back. 1t did not occur to me to think
that where Roland was, his master was
not far distant. And went down the lane
no more.
After that, then, one day crept by, and
another, and life continued in the old way,
and all the business Of the great farm
thrived in the hands of Bryan, the directing
overseer, and all seemed to me mere idle
ness. The moving machines were hum
ming all day in the meadows, and the huge
loads of fragrant hay came laboring into
the barns, and thunder-clouds made panics
and the lightning fell, as it always did on
the wet, low grounds, and burned one or
| two hay-stacks; and then the gundelows
went down the river for the salt hay and
came back, days afterward, with their dark
| square sails set atop of their square loads
| OF thatch; and one by one all the concerns
of ripening and harvesting had their sea-
son, and passed, and August was over
| And Mark had never once been up the lane
again; and September had gone, and the
! harveSt-moOn; and the hunters moon had
poured its silver floods of light out of a
great lonely heaven; and still Mark had
| never come.
l suppose Mrs. Wells, my next neighbor,
knew all about it. And Mrs Sawyer, on the
other side, of course knew all that Mrs
Wells did. They were very good to me, and
| they and the girls were always running in
to see me, or sending for me to run in and
| see them. | don't think l was trying to
! carry things off with high hand, and |
| know | wasn't hanging my head and crying
over what was not to be helped; | simply
mado up my mind to the inevitable. was
never going to have Mark beside me any
more, and | must endure it, and get through
life as well as | could. l had this farm on
my hands, and all the people who had their
living from it, and l must do my duty. And
perhaps in time fate would be kinder, and
give me fever or cough, and let me lie
down and die; and he would come then and
look on me, and remember how / had loved
him, and be sorry. And thinking how sorry
he would be was joy Rugged to my heart,
and the only joy l had.
But l used to long so sometimes to see
Marks dear face again, to hear his voice,
just to lay my head on his shoulder, and cry
my eyes out there. Sometimes it used to
seem to me that / couldn't live another
minute If | didn't run down that lane and up
through the wood to the old house on the
rock and find him, and beg him to forgive
me-forgive, oh, not just that burst of
temper, but the whole rebellion of my soul
and come back to me; and sometimes
felt that | must take some sleeping potion
that would keep me benumbed till the pain
had passed, or else must throw myself into
the river always running by brimmed and
shining and Indifferent.